Rookies pay big price in camp

Tuesday

Aug 2, 2011 at 9:29 PM

By TOM BALOG

Deonte' Jackson's career with the Buccaneers ended before it started.

The 23-year-old undrafted rookie free agent running back from Idaho was in training camp for only three days before the Buccaneers gave him the news he didn't think he'd get until at least after a few preseason games.

But when Tampa Bay re-signed veteran free agent linebacker Adam Hayward on Sunday, the coaches decided Jackson was the most expendable player on the 90-man training camp roster and released him.

Jackson may not have had much chance to begin with, from the bottom of the depth chart. But had there not been a four-month lockout, he and the rest of the undrafted players signed within the last week would have had a better opportunity to show their talents than the one they are getting. The labor strife wiped out their orientation period.

"Right now, the free agents are really in a bind," said Buccaneers running backs coach Steve Logan. "Obviously they didn't have any camp, they didn't have any OTA's and we have to get ready for our season."

"It's extremely tough for us rookies," said Detron Lewis, a 21-year-old undrafted free agent wide receiver from Texas Tech. "We come in ... and they just throw the whole playbook at us, and they expect us to learn it."

Mosis Madu, an undrafted rookie running back from Oklahoma, described how fast it happened.

"I got the call after the lockout ended, came straight here, then signed and finally got my playbook. The next day, we're already putting stuff in, having meetings and my head was spinning," Madu said. "Now I've had three or four days, I think I'm getting the hang of it, and it's clicking more and more."

Ordinarily, the rookie free agents like Jackson and long snapper Aaron Feld, who was the first player released, would have been signed the last week of April, following the NFL draft.

Then they would have been brought to One Buccaneer Place for a three-day weekend rookie mini-camp and taken part in subsequent weeks in organized team activities with the veterans, and finally the mandatory mini-camp in late June.

"Hopefully they can take that into consideration," Lewis said. "They probably won't, because this is a professional league.

"I mean, we can't think about missing all that time. We just have to get in the playbook even more, study even harder and be prepared to make a play when our number is called."

Logan has restricted the young running backs to individual drills, like running pass routes for the quarterbacks.

"I like them, but I can't put them in any group drills yet, because they don't know what they're doing," Logan said. "Right now we're working with the veterans."

Madu and running Armando Allen Jr., along with rookie sixth-round draft pick Allen Bradford, will not take part in team drills until next week, Logan said, as the first preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs approaches.

"When we get closer to the Kansas City game, we're going to start giving them more reps, obviously, because they have to get in the game," Logan said.

"We've been back there just taking mental reps the whole time," Madu said. "All the free agents, and Allen (Bradford), we all just sit by each other, kind of drill each other, quiz each other."

Terminology is the biggest issue facing the offensive linemen.

"All the language they have just gotten for the first time," said offensive line coach Pat Morris. "Because we've kept the language they had last year. So those guys have really got to be on the fast track, they've got to catch up."

"It's just learning the terminology, getting used to the snap count, getting used to the cadence," said Thomas Claiborne, an undrafted rookie guard from Boston College. "The good thing is the offense is pretty much similar to what we ran at Boston College."